An Immigrant’s View of “Amrika”

books & arts Deepak Singh. 2017. How May I Help You? An Immigrant’s Journey from MBA to Minimum Wage. Oakland: University of California Press. 305 pages. I am in an electronics store in the shopping mall near my house. While staring perplexedly at a display of cell phone accessories, I am approached by a store […]

The Speaking Fence

It speaks constantly. In five languages. “Attention, attention. I’m warning you that you’re at the Hungarian border, at the border crossing, which is the property of the Hungarian government. If you damage the fence, cross illegally or attempt to cross, it’s counted as a crime in Hungary. I’m warning you to hold back from committing […]

Children on the Border: Could Migration be the Problem, Not the Solution?

Youth gang recruits in Guatemala and elsewhere in Central America are at risk at home, during migration, and even once they reach the U.S. Photo courtesy of USAID Can a border crisis originate in nurseries? More and more Americans are hiring women from Central America to raise their children. More often than not, the women […]

Jamaica: A Queer Place

The dump in Riverton has started burning again. A stinking heap of tires, plastic, chemicals, and other run-off, piled high as if an altar to the consumptive labors of residents of Kingston and its surrounding parishes, has confounded slack-handed and resourced-challenged responses to this now familiar but more ferocious blaze sending children to hospital, forcing […]

NAFTA’s Highway of Death

Books and Arts: Reviews of Books, Articles, the Arts, and More! Shaylih Muehlmann. 2014. When I Wear My Alligator Boots: Narco-Culture in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands. Oakland: University of California Press. Anna Ochoa O’Leary, Colin M. Deeds and Scott Whiteford, eds. 2013. Uncharted Terrains: New Directions in Border Research Methodology, Ethics, and Practice. Tucson: University of […]